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Red Deer Rebels centre Carter Anderson chases after Medicine Hat Tiger forward Brayden Boehm in the teams' WHL matchup on Dec. 11, 2021. (Red Deer Rebels/Rob Wallator)
second defeat to med hat this season

High-flying Rebels knocked off by last place Tigers

Dec 12, 2021 | 12:35 AM

For the third game in a row, the Red Deer Rebels needed more than 60 minutes to find a result.

The Rebels came into their game with Medicine Hat Saturday with 17 wins to the Tigers’ four.

The two hadn’t met since Oct. 8 when the Tigers won 4-2, but they’ve otherwise taken very different paths since.

Red Deer was also sporting an 8-5-0-0 home record compared to Med Hat’s 1-10-2-1 record on the road. On this night, Red Deer gave the Tigers their fifth win on the season, losing 4-3 in the shootout.

Just one goal came in the opening frame, that being from Oren Shtrom (4th-PP) at the 5:04 mark.

The home team took the lead in the second period — first, Jace Weir (4th) scored at 9:09, with assists to Christoffer Sedoff and Arshdeep Bains.

Dallon Melin (2nd) put Red Deer ahead 2-1 when he scored in the dying moments of the period at 18:45.

In the middle frame, Med Hat blueliner Luke Rybinski was given a major penalty for kneeing and a game misconduct, but Red Deer failed to capitalize on the man advantage.

That was costly, for at the 11:00 minute mark of the third, Shtrom (5th) got his second of the night to tie things up at two.

Just 70 seconds later, however, Bains (12th) regained the lead for Red Deer — Ben King and Sedoff getting helpers.

Up 3-2, the Tigers’ net empty, and trying to hang on for the win, Red Deer gave up a late one at 18:34 to Ashton Ferster (7th), and this game was headed to overtime.

Nothing doing in OT, the Rebels hoped their sticks would come alive in the shootout. Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be.

Arshdeep Bains failed to score on the first shot, followed up by a miss from Red Deer Minor Hockey product Noah Danielson.

Ben King, one of the WHL’s leading point-getters, failed on his attempt, and then Lukas Svejkovsky scored on Rebels goalie Chase Coward.

Needing to score to keep things alive, Red Deer’s Liam Keeler missed once again, and the extra point went to the visitors.

The Rebels’ Coward stopped 25 of 28 shots faced, and now sports a record of 9-7-0-1 this season, with a 2.42 GAA and .915 SV%.

On the night, Red Deer outshot their opponents 35-27 and went 0/3 on the power play. Med Hat was 1/4 with an extra man.

Dallon Melin (1 goal, 5 shots) was named first star, Oren Shtrom (2 goals, 3 shots) earned second star honours, and Jace Weir (1 goal, 4 shots) was made third star.

Up next for Red Deer (17-9-1-1) is a date with the Swift Current Broncos (11-13-2-1) on Wednesday, Dec. 15 at the Peavey Mart Centrium. That will be game two of the current three-game homestand. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. with the broadcast live on 106.7 REWIND Radio starting at 6:30.